Philips Offers Low-Power 802.11g WLAN Semiconductor Solution For Mobile Phones
San Jose, CA -- Royal Philips Electronics announced a new low-power 802.11g WLAN semiconductor system-in-a-package (SiP) solution for the mobile phone market. This new low-power 802.11g solution enables consumers to access voice, data, and multimedia content through WLAN networks up to five times faster than current 802.11b products on the market without compromising the battery life of the mobile phone. The new low-power 802.11g solution reduces receive and transmit operating power consumption. In addition, the new low-power 802.11g WLAN SiP is pin- and software-compatible with Philips' existing low-power 802.11b SiP, making it simple for mobile phone manufacturers to upgrade existing WLAN-capable mobile phone designs to offer high-speed capabilities.
"The integration of Wi-Fi and cellular technology represents one of the most significant market opportunities for WLAN ICs," said Allen Nogee, principal analyst with industry research firm In-Stat. "Philips is well positioned as a leader in this market segment by providing complete low-power solutions tailored to the size, integration and performance needs of mobile device manufacturers and wireless network operators."
"Philips is a leader in delivering advanced, low-power wireless solutions that are easy to integrate into connected consumer mobile devices," said Paul Marino, VP and general manager, Connectivity, Philips Semiconductors. "The new low-power 802.11g solution is sampling today and is also featured in Philips' Unlicensed Mobile Access (UMA) reference design for mobile phones that automatically hand over voice calls between cellular and WLAN networks. The reference design is already undergoing interoperability testing with Alcatel."
In addition to providing low standby power, the Philips 802.11g solution reduces transmit and receive operating power by more than 30% in 802.11b mode compared to its predecessor (BGW200). In 802.11g mode it provides low system power consumption while surpassing the performance requirements of the mobile phone market. An intelligent transmit power control algorithm adjusts the output power dynamically according to the device's proximity to an access point to further reduce the average system power consumption. These and other improvements allow the low-power 802.11g solution to provide over 15 hours of talk time and over 500 hours of standby time from a standard mobile phone battery (800 milliamp-hour capacity). When combined with a mobile phone host system, this low-power performance minimizes the impact on the converged device's battery life.
The low-power 802.11g SiP is a "zero host load" solution, which is essential when integrating WLAN into mobile phones. The entire IEEE 802.11 protocol software stack resides within the low-power 802.11g solution so that it can independently listen for and process incoming traffic without host processor assistance. In standby mode, the host processor is only activated when a valid data packet is received. This maximizes the battery life of the mobile phone without compromising application performance.
The latest SiP technology from Philips allows all of the components needed for a complete 802.11g WLAN subsystem to be integrated in a single semiconductor package. The new low-power 802.11g WLAN SiP requires no external components to meet the stringent range, interference immunity, and throughput performance requirements of mobile handset manufacturers and cellular network operators. Competing one-chip solutions require the use of external receive low-noise amplifiers (LNA), transmit power amplifiers, multiple antennas and/or additional components -- from multiple suppliers -- to achieve similar performance. All of these extra components add to the total system size/footprint, power consumption, design complexity and risk. Philips' high level of integration results in one of the industry's smallest footprints and enables handset manufacturers to rapidly integrate the technology into today's advanced mobile phones.
The solution complies with the latest 802.11e QoS, including enhanced distributed channel access (EDCA), direct link setup (DLS), block acknowledge (ACK), automatic power save delivery (APSD), and 802.11i security features. A proprietary link adaptation algorithm ensures selection of the best bit-rate in order to avoid loss of link, thereby increasing the overall system throughput.
The low-power 802.11g solution is specifically designed to coexist with Philips Bluetooth solutions, enabling both wireless technologies to operate at the same time, in the same mobile phone. Since 802.11g and Bluetooth use the same frequency spectrum, an integrated hardware interface and algorithm allows the WLAN and Bluetooth technologies to share spectrum without sacrificing quality or performance. This enables users to simultaneously be connected to their voice and data services without interruptions.
Philips' complete low-power BGW211 802.11g solution is sampling now to mobile phone manufacturers. General availability for additional customers is planned in the middle of 2005.
Source: Royal Philips Electronics